[00:04.280 --> 00:04.760]  All right.
[00:05.500 --> 00:06.920]  I'm interested in propaganda.
[00:09.560 --> 00:15.860]  A few years ago I went to a march with a bunch of other sort of New York digital politics kind of people.
[00:16.120 --> 00:19.100]  We went down to the Library of Congress, we protested the DMCA.
[00:19.460 --> 00:20.460]  There was a lot of work to do.
[00:20.620 --> 00:22.020]  It was fun, but it was a lot of work.
[00:22.140 --> 00:28.660]  And we went down there, we had these flyers and t-shirts, and we'd stop people, we'd try to explain what we were on about, and we couldn't do it.
[00:28.660 --> 00:35.780]  You know, the person would finally stop and they'd say, well, okay, what's your cause, wacko?
[00:36.040 --> 00:38.560]  And we'd say, oh, well, blah, blah.
[00:38.720 --> 00:41.060]  Ten lines later they'd say, oh, it's about computers.
[00:42.000 --> 00:43.100]  It just wasn't working.
[00:43.980 --> 00:47.480]  So what I've been working on is propaganda hacking.
[00:47.680 --> 00:54.240]  I want to have something simple to say that will explain my cause and my purpose easily and cleanly.
[00:55.280 --> 01:01.220]  And so what I have arrived on is something that I think is sort of on the far, far left of digital politics.
[01:01.580 --> 01:12.560]  I think I probably would go, intentionally probably would go to the left of, I don't know, most people and just say intellectual poverty as well.
[01:12.760 --> 01:17.360]  So that's purely a preface to explain what I'm doing here, what the purpose of it is.
[01:17.360 --> 01:21.000]  This is going to be sort of a fire and brimstone thing in a certain way.
[01:21.340 --> 01:25.380]  It's not really, you know, I'm used to giving technical presentations, but probably fun and weird.
[01:32.440 --> 01:38.120]  All right, so the first key point is that the government needs to get out of the music business or into it, one or the other.
[01:42.760 --> 01:51.640]  When we talk about intellectual property, we're generally sort of basing what we're talking about on an understanding of what that stuff is in the Constitution.
[01:54.880 --> 01:59.140]  When the founders wrote the copyright clause, they did two things.
[02:00.020 --> 02:03.900]  One of the things they did was that they conjured up an industry out of thin air.
[02:04.440 --> 02:07.600]  There was no intellectual property industry.
[02:08.440 --> 02:16.260]  And it was created from scratch in that moment of guaranteeing that there would be such a thing as intellectual property, which doesn't exist in nature.
[02:16.260 --> 02:21.480]  And number two, the founders created a government policy towards the arts.
[02:22.380 --> 02:27.480]  Now, aside from the First Amendment and free speech, there pretty much is no other government policy towards the arts.
[02:27.640 --> 02:39.860]  And really, this has come to have the effect that they created an industry to administer the arts on behalf of the government.
[02:43.120 --> 02:47.220]  Now, we've arrived where we are now because it isn't working.
[02:47.400 --> 02:52.260]  And the reason it isn't working is that that industry has the power of government behind it, but not the accountability.
[02:54.240 --> 03:01.400]  Sorry, this is going to be kind of speech format, which I think could be entertaining and also could be sort of annoying as I flip pages and don't use slides.
[03:04.000 --> 03:05.060]  Alright, I'm going back to the beginning.
[03:05.300 --> 03:06.720]  The government needs to get out of the music business.
[03:06.960 --> 03:08.460]  The board needs to get into it, one or the other.
[03:08.700 --> 03:10.400]  The problem is that it's not doing either.
[03:11.360 --> 03:13.960]  When the founders wrote the copyright clause, they did two things.
[03:14.220 --> 03:19.640]  They conjured up an industry out of thin air, and they established government policy towards the arts.
[03:20.320 --> 03:21.300]  This isn't working.
[03:21.480 --> 03:26.340]  And the reason it isn't working is that that industry has the power of government behind it, but not the accountability.
[03:26.960 --> 03:40.400]  The result is that the people, by which I mean, you know, the people thing that you see in the declaration in capital letters, are subject to regulation without having a voice in what the regulators do.
[03:42.940 --> 03:47.040]  And as a result, what we have is an anti-democratic institution.
[03:47.300 --> 03:53.200]  We have an actual system that's set up, it's working, it's doing its thing properly, and it's an anti-democratic mechanism.
[03:56.140 --> 04:00.080]  So, what makes this anti-democratic is that there's collusion between government and industry.
[04:00.640 --> 04:10.380]  There needs to be a wall between government and industry, just the same way as there's a wall between, you know, any other important parties in the forces that make government run.
[04:10.540 --> 04:11.220]  And there isn't.
[04:11.280 --> 04:12.300]  There's collusion instead.
[04:12.620 --> 04:23.660]  And when democracy breaks down, because there's collusion between privileged parties, the recourse is for the people to forcibly remind the government that it is the servant.
[04:24.700 --> 04:34.380]  Now, I want to say this very specifically, that force is a real thing, is a useful thing, and it's the way things work.
[04:36.480 --> 04:44.880]  And not only that, it is the way democracy works, is that the people have to not ask the government to do the right thing, but tell it.
[04:47.200 --> 04:50.600]  Government does the people's bidding unwillingly as a rule.
[04:50.600 --> 04:55.520]  Pretty much anywhere near the top, people in government are these ambitious, fairly scrupulous people.
[04:55.760 --> 04:59.040]  Maybe they're scrupulous, they're definitely ambitious, they're pretty hardcore.
[04:59.400 --> 05:02.900]  And they're not, they are to, you know...
[05:02.900 --> 05:04.800]  Anyway, they do our bidding unwillingly.
[05:04.980 --> 05:08.820]  Government always strains against democracy, and always has to be forced to do the right thing.
[05:09.120 --> 05:11.980]  It doesn't want to be accountable, it wants to be elected for life.
[05:12.460 --> 05:15.660]  The arts are only a danger to political careers.
[05:17.840 --> 05:21.600]  Politicians, strategically or tactically, need to keep the arts as far away as possible.
[05:21.960 --> 05:23.160]  The arts can do nothing for them.
[05:23.300 --> 05:24.940]  At least in America, obviously in France.
[05:26.220 --> 05:29.240]  Presidents write books of poetry and stuff like that, but that's not the way it is in the US.
[05:31.340 --> 05:38.980]  So, to keep the arts at arm's length, politicians have established these proxies to do administration.
[05:38.980 --> 05:41.320]  And proxies are not democratic institutions.
[05:43.460 --> 05:46.220]  Proxies are neither in the government nor out of it.
[05:47.000 --> 05:56.380]  So when the founders established a proxy body to enact policy towards the arts, they created not just an industry, but a super industry that has special powers.
[05:56.800 --> 06:05.040]  And when the founders wrote the copyright clause, they abdicated their responsibility to make a government which is responsible to the voters and the people.
[06:06.260 --> 06:09.240]  I don't want to sound paranoid and I don't want to make up a conspiracy theory.
[06:09.680 --> 06:14.900]  What I mean to say is that history, it has a frame and it has a meme.
[06:16.680 --> 06:19.460]  A meme is the stuff we see in the Constitution.
[06:19.500 --> 06:22.480]  So it's all this, all the, you know, the thoughts and the ideas behind it.
[06:22.540 --> 06:23.400]  But they're really just ideas.
[06:23.620 --> 06:27.000]  And those ideas survive or die according to the rules of memes.
[06:27.300 --> 06:31.100]  So memes, you know, they're catchy, they're short enough to be memorable, maybe they're sexy.
[06:31.100 --> 06:34.340]  There are a lot of things that can help them live or die.
[06:34.680 --> 06:36.060]  And that's the stuff of the Constitution.
[06:36.860 --> 06:38.400]  And then there are frames.
[06:38.780 --> 06:40.960]  There are actual real things.
[06:44.540 --> 06:49.360]  And, I'm sorry, next to the memes there is a reality.
[06:49.820 --> 06:51.940]  Reality is basically a thread of institutions.
[06:52.200 --> 06:56.300]  So it's land ownership, buildings, investments, apprenticeships.
[06:56.900 --> 07:00.400]  You know, apprenticeships bring you into a career for life and you hold on to it for a long time.
[07:00.400 --> 07:03.160]  And then you teach an apprentice and so on and so on.
[07:03.240 --> 07:03.820]  You have all these links.
[07:04.020 --> 07:05.600]  And this is how history is made up.
[07:05.720 --> 07:11.800]  This is how you get this long continuous chain of things that stay more or less the same over time.
[07:12.880 --> 07:17.400]  And you have judicial precedence as part of the reality of things.
[07:17.640 --> 07:34.480]  The reality of IP, the reality of intellectual property, is that it stands for the thread of institutions that have been linked as a series of businesses since the writing of the Constitution and since the establishing of these early intellectual property industries.
[07:36.260 --> 07:40.380]  The thread is a specific industry.
[07:40.720 --> 07:42.640]  These institutions are a specific industry.
[07:42.780 --> 07:44.100]  They're not any other industry.
[07:44.280 --> 07:45.900]  They are not the digital industry.
[07:45.900 --> 07:48.360]  They're not the not intellectual property industry.
[07:48.500 --> 07:49.480]  And they're not the arts industry.
[07:49.820 --> 07:51.400]  They have exactly one product.
[07:55.230 --> 08:01.460]  So from that point on, the way we got to this moment is just by what you'd expect to have happened.
[08:02.160 --> 08:08.680]  One is that the industry that was created by the government and protected by it deliberately gets to do what it likes.
[08:10.720 --> 08:17.700]  The idea that Napster or the .coms can get in and compete with it is fundamentally wrong.
[08:17.980 --> 08:25.160]  The idea that we can go to court and ask for a special privilege or to ask to have Napster certified as a legal business is wrong.
[08:25.340 --> 08:27.320]  Because it's de facto illegal.
[08:29.580 --> 08:38.040]  Number two, the music industry and the IP industry is part of the sin industries and operates in the shadows.
[08:39.560 --> 08:48.760]  So, along with the tobacco industry, alcohol, sex industry, drugs, gambling, it works in secrecy.
[08:49.980 --> 08:59.240]  So, for example, if you try to learn anything about an actual music industry or a music business, how they really work on the inside, any reasonably large business, you'll find pretty much nothing.
[08:59.400 --> 09:00.620]  They're completely closed.
[09:00.800 --> 09:05.400]  Let's go to the website of, you know, Universal and you'll see nothing but public relations.
[09:05.700 --> 09:07.220]  These are not open to the public.
[09:07.960 --> 09:10.440]  And that's unlike a lot of other businesses and industries.
[09:12.540 --> 09:14.040]  It is secretive.
[09:14.480 --> 09:16.520]  It's unbelievably sleazy.
[09:16.600 --> 09:17.880]  It lives on payoffs.
[09:20.090 --> 09:21.760]  It doesn't actually sell anything.
[09:21.980 --> 09:23.200]  It says...
[09:23.200 --> 09:25.380]  It doesn't say, give us money and we'll give you music.
[09:25.640 --> 09:28.200]  It says, give us money and we won't sue you.
[09:28.340 --> 09:29.580]  Give us money and we won't hurt you.
[09:30.020 --> 09:31.240]  That's the IP promise.
[09:34.560 --> 09:36.320]  And an example of this is with ASCAP.
[09:37.180 --> 09:47.340]  You know, the music licensing organizations do what they do because they have a right to sue a bar for very little and they have very, you know, very little, they have very loose reins in them as far as what they can do.
[09:47.340 --> 09:53.180]  So the bars pay up regardless of whether or not they're going to play any ASCAP licensed music because the threat is so serious.
[09:54.880 --> 09:58.180]  So the problem here, the music industry is acting as an arm of government.
[09:58.860 --> 10:00.720]  At the same time, it doesn't have the constraints.
[10:00.980 --> 10:02.000]  It doesn't have the oversight.
[10:02.180 --> 10:03.080]  There's no vote.
[10:03.280 --> 10:04.340]  There's no disclosure.
[10:04.760 --> 10:07.020]  There's no opportunity to throw the bastards out.
[10:07.100 --> 10:07.860]  And this is on purpose.
[10:08.180 --> 10:10.660]  What it does have in common is power by fiat.
[10:11.040 --> 10:13.140]  And that's what democracies are formed to prevent.
[10:15.740 --> 10:19.600]  So I was talking to my friend Mike after a Lawrence Lessig speech we saw.
[10:22.460 --> 10:25.960]  And Mike and I sort of both noticed the same thing without even really having to say it.
[10:25.980 --> 10:30.640]  And that was that there was a huge part of the conversation about intellectual property that wasn't really getting said.
[10:32.050 --> 10:41.680]  The EFF, guys like John Gilmore, and Lessig all sort of agree that we're losing and we need to seek a compromise.
[10:44.190 --> 10:51.240]  The point, our advocates would have us believe, is that this is about balance between speech and copyright.
[10:51.520 --> 11:00.680]  And it's true that when you go to Congress and you ask for something and you want to represent the hackers, that's a relatively mild line that's pretty good.
[11:00.860 --> 11:02.260]  But I think it stinks because it's wrong.
[11:02.700 --> 11:05.420]  And it's totally beyond the point.
[11:06.700 --> 11:09.800]  Here's a quote about Lessig just to articulate what I mean.
[11:12.060 --> 11:19.160]  Lessig urges us to treat the copyright clause as striking a balance between private intellectual property and a public intellectual commons.
[11:19.620 --> 11:26.780]  Should the balance tilt too far, the public will risk losing its constitutionally mandated right to a vibrant public domain.
[11:27.280 --> 11:29.500]  Well, we really are losing all over the place.
[11:29.840 --> 11:31.240]  We're losing all over the place, right?
[11:31.320 --> 11:32.500]  We're getting killed in the laws.
[11:32.860 --> 11:36.740]  Stuff like the CBD, TPA is, you know, laughable.
[11:37.000 --> 11:40.300]  It's incredible how badly we're getting punished in the legislatures.
[11:41.260 --> 11:47.480]  We're getting all the traditional attacks against the sin industries where manufacturers are punishable just for existing.
[11:47.480 --> 11:52.140]  Because you want to, you know, hate the sin but love the sinner.
[11:52.340 --> 11:58.260]  And that's why we're allowed to attack manufacturers of file sharing and other digital freedoms for the goods.
[11:58.440 --> 11:59.380]  We're losing the courts.
[11:59.700 --> 12:01.360]  We're losing the world of public perception.
[12:01.940 --> 12:03.520]  Everybody agrees this is piracy.
[12:03.600 --> 12:04.760]  The file sharing is piracy.
[12:05.920 --> 12:06.720]  Nobody disagrees.
[12:06.720 --> 12:08.360]  And I argue this point all the time.
[12:08.460 --> 12:12.340]  And I can't even convince people who agree with me that file sharing is not piracy.
[12:13.740 --> 12:21.580]  And the idea that the 5% loss in business by the music business is due to file sharing has been pretty well sold.
[12:21.720 --> 12:23.000]  So we lost those things pretty well.
[12:23.100 --> 12:24.000]  But it doesn't matter.
[12:24.540 --> 12:29.440]  There's no reason to mind what the courts and the legislature and the public say.
[12:30.420 --> 12:32.160]  Because what matters is what they do.
[12:32.420 --> 12:37.240]  And what they do makes it perfectly clear that they care who the winners are.
[12:37.540 --> 12:40.580]  And that morality is going to go to the winners.
[12:43.980 --> 12:46.340]  The IP industry is too big to fail.
[12:46.600 --> 12:52.560]  And our challenge is not to have the government give us permission to get in there and do what we want to do.
[12:52.720 --> 12:54.440]  It's to beat them and get bigger.
[12:56.180 --> 13:01.560]  So when Lessig says the copyright clause of the Constitution is about a balance, he's fooling himself.
[13:01.820 --> 13:07.560]  The public has never had a constitutionally mandated right to a vibrant public domain.
[13:08.000 --> 13:15.400]  What the public has had is the incidental benefits of an arts policy that the government contracted out to a specific industry.
[13:15.640 --> 13:16.780]  The IP industry.
[13:17.360 --> 13:18.820]  There is no music industry.
[13:19.180 --> 13:20.560]  There is no arts industry.
[13:20.560 --> 13:31.480]  Those things, they could be satisfied by live performances, by the sale of instruments and sheet music, by a living wage for giving lessons, by paying buskers halfway decently.
[13:32.160 --> 13:33.540]  But that's not the industry.
[13:33.660 --> 13:39.920]  The only thing there is is an IP industry that happens to pay the bills via a relationship with artists and inventors.
[13:40.540 --> 13:42.880]  So the copyright clause is not about balance.
[13:42.900 --> 13:45.500]  And the situation has always been what it is right now.
[13:52.710 --> 13:58.910]  So what the situation is right now is what you get from the combination of secrecy and privilege that's built into the copyright clause.
[13:59.310 --> 14:01.110]  Arbitrariness and self-dealing.
[14:01.410 --> 14:08.970]  Self-dealing means that membership, as opposed to products, as opposed to output, is the most important value in the IP industry.
[14:08.970 --> 14:13.710]  So, with the recent decisions as far as net radio goes.
[14:14.090 --> 14:22.450]  This seems, you know, pointless until you realize that what matters is that net radio is not part of that industry.
[14:22.790 --> 14:27.450]  And the purpose of the copyright clause is not to encourage the arts or to encourage radio.
[14:27.670 --> 14:29.790]  It's to keep an IP industry alive.
[14:32.210 --> 14:36.070]  Courts are going to fix this because they are right now to fix it.
[14:36.070 --> 14:42.070]  But the copyright... what the copyright clause says, what the Constitution says is, it is the industry of intellectual property.
[14:42.230 --> 14:44.270]  And not the products of that industry.
[14:44.410 --> 14:47.490]  Not the output that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
[14:48.890 --> 14:49.970]  Think about the copyright clause.
[14:50.150 --> 14:54.870]  In order to blah blah blah, Congress has the power to do copyrights and patents.
[14:55.370 --> 14:57.390]  In order to is not a mandate.
[14:57.810 --> 14:59.410]  We are not telling anybody to do things.
[14:59.410 --> 15:05.890]  The courts are now required to follow that in order to promote the progress of the arts and useful sciences.
[15:06.130 --> 15:12.150]  The courts are obligated to allow the Congress to grant intellectual property.
[15:12.630 --> 15:14.050]  That's a very different status.
[15:17.870 --> 15:22.630]  And this is arbitrary in that the music industry, the IP industry, has no obligation to the public.
[15:22.730 --> 15:24.130]  And it can do what it wants with its power.
[15:25.530 --> 15:30.090]  Again, music labels don't offer downloadable music because they don't have to.
[15:30.270 --> 15:31.550]  They're not responsible to the public.
[15:31.770 --> 15:33.870]  They're a private thing.
[15:37.610 --> 15:40.710]  Well, despite all this, we're really doing pretty good by brute force so far.
[15:40.830 --> 15:43.570]  I don't agree with the gloominess of a lot of people.
[15:43.750 --> 15:45.610]  I think we're actually doing pretty good.
[15:45.790 --> 15:48.290]  We invented the internet, which does not suck.
[15:48.950 --> 15:51.230]  You know, this file sharing thing is really pretty popular.
[15:51.350 --> 15:52.330]  Everybody's got computers.
[15:52.450 --> 15:53.730]  There's a lot of smart people out there.
[15:54.350 --> 15:55.670]  And we're making progress.
[15:55.910 --> 15:57.650]  Yeah, our enemies are evil and powerful.
[15:57.910 --> 15:59.050]  We are not that weak.
[16:01.110 --> 16:03.750]  And we shouldn't get down on ourselves just because the law hates us.
[16:04.350 --> 16:07.930]  All the law is waiting for is that we need to crush the opposition by brute force.
[16:08.670 --> 16:10.850]  So it's good to contribute to the EFF.
[16:11.210 --> 16:12.790]  It's good to write letters to Congress.
[16:12.910 --> 16:14.790]  And demonstrating is a fine thing to do.
[16:14.890 --> 16:17.030]  But that's not how hackers work.
[16:18.130 --> 16:24.970]  You know, you see digital politics people trying to raise money for funds.
[16:25.010 --> 16:26.130]  It's like pulling teeth.
[16:26.510 --> 16:29.710]  You know, they can repeat it 150 times a minute.
[16:29.710 --> 16:39.570]  And the truth is that everybody in the audience is happy to go build stuff and unhappy to go call their congressman, write letters, join the ACLU, blah, blah, blah.
[16:39.570 --> 16:41.470]  Because that's really not the way that we operate.
[16:41.790 --> 16:43.870]  The way we operate is that we build stuff.
[16:44.690 --> 16:47.950]  And what we need to keep doing is keeping building stuff.
[16:49.170 --> 16:53.390]  The only thing wrong with what we're doing is a couple small things.
[16:56.830 --> 17:00.990]  One of these things is building stuff with a more aggressively political feature set.
[17:02.230 --> 17:03.970]  is an effective way to work.
[17:04.370 --> 17:06.350]  So, here's a few examples.
[17:06.730 --> 17:07.730]  I'm going to turn on the time.
[17:07.850 --> 17:09.090]  I'm a little bit further ahead.
[17:09.170 --> 17:12.990]  Sometimes I might actually get to meander around these hacks I'm about to talk about.
[17:13.090 --> 17:13.630]  Anybody know the time?
[17:14.390 --> 17:14.930]  Time back?
[17:15.870 --> 17:16.570]  26 after?
[17:17.230 --> 17:17.730]  All right.
[17:17.870 --> 17:18.630]  So, all right.
[17:18.710 --> 17:19.230]  I'll do two of these.
[17:19.450 --> 17:19.550]  Okay.
[17:19.690 --> 17:28.730]  So, here's a couple of technical toys that have a political impact and that are deliberately political technical toys.
[17:28.730 --> 17:36.690]  One of these things is the thing I've been doing with a few friends, which is a file sharing party that we call mostly a RIP swap.
[17:36.970 --> 17:39.270]  And the purpose of this thing is to share files.
[17:39.410 --> 17:42.010]  And what we do is people walk over to each other's houses.
[17:42.010 --> 17:44.630]  They bring a hard drive or they bring a computer or a laptop.
[17:44.950 --> 17:47.710]  The person hosting the party has a hub.
[17:48.290 --> 17:51.030]  We have a couple, you know, Ethernet cables.
[17:51.490 --> 17:54.970]  Everybody has a copy of Apache or can pick one up or WGET.
[17:55.130 --> 17:57.770]  And then we do direct downloads in person.
[17:59.110 --> 18:03.310]  So, the net effects of this are it's fun and it's social.
[18:04.130 --> 18:06.070]  It's totally legally protected.
[18:06.770 --> 18:07.250]  Right?
[18:07.450 --> 18:15.590]  Unless the cops are going to send somebody into your private home where you're drinking beer and having a barbecue with your friends, the administrators are not going to get down into this.
[18:15.850 --> 18:16.970]  Legally, you are immune.
[18:18.610 --> 18:22.490]  The amount of stuff transferable is disgusting.
[18:22.950 --> 18:26.970]  On average, we take home five to ten gigs a night of good stuff.
[18:27.210 --> 18:30.470]  With recommendations and comments like, no, you don't want that.
[18:30.490 --> 18:31.050]  It sucks.
[18:31.270 --> 18:32.310]  The download is cut off.
[18:32.970 --> 18:34.990]  So, this is a technical political hack.
[18:37.110 --> 18:37.510]  Right?
[18:38.290 --> 18:44.870]  We accomplish enough mass sharing that it's got to be terrifying to our enemies.
[18:45.470 --> 18:47.430]  Five to ten gigs of stuff is a lot of stuff.
[18:47.650 --> 18:53.210]  If you do that over, even over a, you know, a good broadband connection, there's a lot of junk.
[18:53.210 --> 18:56.610]  And it's going to be junk if you get it off the public downloads.
[18:56.910 --> 18:57.810]  And it's good stuff from your friends.
[18:57.910 --> 18:58.270]  Sorry, go ahead.
[18:58.530 --> 18:59.650]  I didn't want to take you off track.
[19:00.030 --> 19:00.130]  Yeah.
[19:00.230 --> 19:09.890]  Can you just elaborate a little bit on the legal protections and the differences between the private party and one of us through, like, a box on a limb, playing a show like this?
[19:10.530 --> 19:11.150]  Which is not...
[19:11.150 --> 19:12.450]  You're not paying to...
[19:12.450 --> 19:16.530]  Nobody pays to tell people who say it's legal.
[19:17.170 --> 19:20.530]  But obviously, the same protections are not afforded because it's a semi-bubble.
[19:20.810 --> 19:22.410]  Well, I think that the...
[19:23.010 --> 19:24.070]  Did everybody hear the question?
[19:24.270 --> 19:24.930]  Should I repeat that?
[19:24.930 --> 19:25.490]  Okay.
[19:26.070 --> 19:27.550]  So, I think that the key point...
[19:28.030 --> 19:32.690]  This is going to sound a little gross, but I don't think the key point is legal because I think the law follows practice.
[19:33.670 --> 19:34.890]  And I think that this is...
[19:34.890 --> 19:35.730]  It doesn't really matter.
[19:35.850 --> 19:37.690]  What matters is, are you going to get busted?
[19:37.970 --> 19:39.430]  Are the cops going to come in and do it?
[19:39.610 --> 19:46.410]  The cops, you know, the record industry doesn't want to have photos in the paper of, you know, thugs breaking down the front door.
[19:46.670 --> 19:51.990]  They would be a lot more comfortable about it here because, you know, there's this smelly hacker thing going on.
[19:53.850 --> 20:04.550]  But I think if you had a cool party at your loft in a sort of, you know, rave sort of context, drugs, loud music, you know, all night, it would be pretty cool, you know?
[20:04.550 --> 20:05.370]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[20:06.390 --> 20:08.450]  And the cops wouldn't want to really go in there.
[20:08.510 --> 20:09.130]  It wouldn't look good.
[20:09.210 --> 20:09.990]  It would give you good publicity.
[20:10.270 --> 20:11.990]  So, I mean, the answer is, it works if you get busted.
[20:23.130 --> 20:23.410]  Phenomenal.
[20:27.590 --> 20:32.130]  I have a friend with a collection of it.
[20:32.750 --> 20:33.590]  Yeah, yeah.
[20:33.590 --> 20:34.410]  It was phenomenal.
[20:36.850 --> 20:43.010]  So, okay, so, so, so, so, the point of these things is that this is a political and technical hack, right?
[20:43.010 --> 20:45.450]  Our bandwidth is disgusting.
[20:46.370 --> 20:50.270]  As, as, as Kevin said to me after one of these things, he emailed me the next day.
[20:50.410 --> 20:55.610]  He said, okay, well, I got 10 gigs for a ride in the subway here and back.
[20:55.730 --> 20:59.170]  So, my throughput kicked ass on my cable modem.
[20:59.630 --> 21:04.290]  And it's a political hack because it's really scary to our opposition if we spread the practice.
[21:05.550 --> 21:16.490]  So, my point here is, by using your inventiveness, you don't have to do what our, sort of, leaders say you have to do, which is flyer, you know, sign petitions and so on.
[21:16.650 --> 21:20.010]  Taking action is effective and taking action is what we do well.
[21:21.110 --> 21:25.290]  The only thing you have to do differently is apply your creativity more directly and maybe more aggressively.
[21:25.570 --> 21:26.050]  Yeah, go ahead.
[21:27.230 --> 21:31.450]  If you're doing, if you're doing these things privately, how would it scare them?
[21:31.610 --> 21:32.870]  How would they even know about it?
[21:32.870 --> 21:38.230]  Would you tell your friends about what you do with your other friends about all this file sharing and hope that it gets to them?
[21:39.390 --> 21:40.730]  Seriously, how would they find out about it?
[21:40.790 --> 21:46.090]  Can a journalist with, like, big PR blitz be like, hey, this is a friend, because they eat that shit up.
[21:46.530 --> 21:46.970]  Oh, yeah, okay.
[21:46.970 --> 21:49.350]  Like, that's in the news and then, you know, like, what are you going to do?
[21:49.490 --> 21:50.770]  Right, or give talks about it.
[21:53.910 --> 21:55.190]  I think we all follow them.
[21:57.350 --> 22:03.450]  And another similar sort of political technical hack is a thing called a friend net.
[22:03.630 --> 22:06.850]  You know, you've got to have a name for your projects, and that's a catchy name for this project.
[22:07.070 --> 22:11.250]  The idea of a friend net is that it is not... it's a file sharing network.
[22:11.550 --> 22:16.010]  So it's about, you know, downloading stuff from your friends' computers over the internet and not in person.
[22:16.010 --> 22:18.690]  And the difference is that you only connect to your friends.
[22:19.110 --> 22:24.470]  You should never have a connection to somebody whose phone number, an email address you don't have, and his face you don't have.
[22:24.730 --> 22:26.270]  You know, you've got to know them a little while.
[22:26.630 --> 22:26.870]  Right?
[22:27.150 --> 22:29.130]  And so, from there, it's all just fun technology.
[22:30.090 --> 22:32.850]  There's a lot of interesting problems in networking that come up with that.
[22:33.050 --> 22:38.130]  So, for example, you're going to have this extremely delayed way of going, because your friends aren't online all the time.
[22:38.310 --> 22:39.790]  And you're going to have to cash listings.
[22:40.530 --> 22:41.970]  It's an entertaining set of problems.
[22:45.830 --> 22:49.350]  But the net result on a political level is that this is a cell structure.
[22:49.630 --> 22:49.890]  Right?
[22:49.990 --> 22:51.930]  It's the same thing we want to use to do true evil.
[22:52.090 --> 22:53.170]  We're not trying to do true evil.
[22:53.410 --> 22:54.570]  We're trying to do true good.
[22:54.830 --> 22:55.110]  Right?
[22:55.170 --> 22:56.430]  But our opponents are true evil.
[22:56.570 --> 22:56.870]  We're great.
[22:57.010 --> 22:57.570]  We're the forces of good.
[22:57.670 --> 22:58.870]  And we're going to have to be strong about it.
[22:58.950 --> 22:59.750]  This is a cell structure.
[22:59.870 --> 23:01.850]  It would be nearly impossible to break something like that.
[23:02.510 --> 23:13.130]  So, to reinforce that point, technology and hacking, and not traditionally political things are positive, political things to do.
[23:13.290 --> 23:14.150]  I think you were first.
[23:14.870 --> 23:21.810]  In the last six months, the NTA and the RA have been sending letters to various Gnutella sheriffs.
[23:21.970 --> 23:25.430]  They target the top 15 sheriffs on the network.
[23:25.510 --> 23:25.870]  Right.
[23:26.010 --> 23:26.670]  It's a parallel network.
[23:26.790 --> 23:40.120]  One of the key things to do that is by getting off the public network and using bots to troll even Gnutella or even going to the working service to find the top sheriffs and then attack them very soon.
[23:40.780 --> 23:44.160]  I mean, they're completely justified to do that.
[23:44.280 --> 23:44.520]  You're right.
[23:44.840 --> 23:45.120]  So, yeah.
[23:45.540 --> 23:54.940]  And plus, with six degrees of separation between everybody on the planet, if you're on the three-friend men and everybody else who's on the other three-friend men, it's the same thing.
[23:55.140 --> 23:55.180]  Right.
[23:55.180 --> 23:59.180]  And anybody who betrays you to the RIAA is not getting any more beer.
[23:59.540 --> 24:00.120]  You know?
[24:00.340 --> 24:02.160]  They're not coming over to watch TV anymore.
[24:02.160 --> 24:03.700]  So, your friends aren't going to do that very likely.
[24:04.540 --> 24:06.280]  I have a little ways to go.
[24:07.040 --> 24:08.100]  It's not really...
[24:08.860 --> 24:10.240]  I'll try to come back to it and make some time.
[24:11.000 --> 24:11.380]  All right.
[24:12.120 --> 24:13.180]  So, we're doing pretty good...
[24:13.820 --> 24:14.720]  I've lost my place.
[24:14.840 --> 24:15.300]  Blah, blah, blah, blah.
[24:15.620 --> 24:15.900]  Okay.
[24:16.300 --> 24:19.220]  The point is we shouldn't get down on ourselves because the law hates us.
[24:20.920 --> 24:23.040]  Writing letters to Congress is not how we operate.
[24:23.040 --> 24:24.740]  What we need to keep doing...
[24:24.740 --> 24:28.300]  What we need to do is exactly what we're doing right now with two small differences.
[24:28.580 --> 24:33.640]  The first one is political, technical hacking along these lines.
[24:33.800 --> 24:37.760]  And the second one is we have to stop fucking apologizing for being who we are.
[24:39.260 --> 24:40.460]  I just don't get it.
[24:40.580 --> 24:42.120]  I really don't get it, you know?
[24:42.280 --> 24:46.120]  I don't know anybody who feels on a moral level that file sharing is stealing.
[24:46.640 --> 24:48.840]  I mean, I'm a fanatic of this subject.
[24:48.920 --> 24:49.720]  And I ask everybody.
[24:49.940 --> 24:51.600]  And I ask them, you know, for 45 minutes.
[24:51.600 --> 24:53.580]  And they never think it's stealing.
[24:53.880 --> 24:55.560]  They don't even think it's wrong usually.
[24:55.760 --> 24:58.720]  They just think it's bad, like they're masturbating or something.
[24:59.300 --> 25:01.860]  And nobody really feels like masturbating is bad.
[25:02.000 --> 25:03.340]  They don't think it's really kind of fun.
[25:03.700 --> 25:04.180]  Right?
[25:05.680 --> 25:11.920]  But everybody has to say they feel it's bad and everybody has to say that they feel that file sharing is bad and evil.
[25:12.660 --> 25:18.420]  And this makes no sense in the world because we are shooting ourselves in the ass so badly it's ridiculous.
[25:18.800 --> 25:21.340]  We have to stop fucking apologizing for what we're doing.
[25:23.240 --> 25:27.480]  Here's a quote from HTTP colon ridiculously long URL.
[25:27.900 --> 25:29.020]  Anybody can ask me about it.
[25:29.660 --> 25:46.180]  If real property rights mean anything at all, people should especially have the right to use the very body and brain they own to solve problems, create products, and subsequently sell them unrestrained by monopoly powers which some other entities are trying to exercise.
[25:47.340 --> 25:59.060]  Real property rights is what this thing is referring to, not abstractions of property rights that are somehow hardened into political doctrine.
[25:59.060 --> 26:08.460]  And the point of this quote is that there's an opposition between these abstract property rights that we call intellectual property and real property rights.
[26:09.460 --> 26:18.300]  That we have a powerful, real right to true property rights.
[26:18.360 --> 26:21.100]  And it's opposed to intellectual property.
[26:21.320 --> 26:23.320]  And there's nothing to apologize for there.
[26:23.520 --> 26:24.260]  We're obviously right.
[26:24.420 --> 26:26.080]  Are you doing a comment or a fix?
[26:26.080 --> 26:31.880]  Yeah, I'd like to do a quick comment basically to human beings by their nature.
[26:32.060 --> 26:34.240]  I mean, they're social beings.
[26:34.520 --> 26:41.160]  I mean, monkeys are social beings and social creatures and humans are not that far remote.
[26:41.160 --> 26:57.120]  So basically, your comment about everybody feeling that nobody admitting at any given time that file sharing is wrong is basically socially due to the fact that you're sharing digital data.
[26:57.120 --> 27:00.320]  If somebody else gets a copy, you're not losing a copy.
[27:00.480 --> 27:01.480]  It's not a tangible thing.
[27:02.120 --> 27:05.960]  Every duplication is possible just by the fact that it's a digital copy.
[27:06.300 --> 27:10.840]  Consequentially, it literally, you are not losing anything by sharing.
[27:11.160 --> 27:15.700]  And in return, you're getting a satisfaction of giving.
[27:15.700 --> 27:22.700]  Well, the idea of rivalrousness is, it's true and it's important, but it's also easy...
[27:26.120 --> 27:28.020]  The general point is you are absolutely right.
[27:28.200 --> 27:28.780]  And the answer is yes.
[27:29.020 --> 27:31.540]  Well, my comparison is... But be careful philosophically because it's...
[27:31.540 --> 27:33.060]  My comparison is very simple.
[27:33.280 --> 27:46.220]  You know, if this would have been a bad year, everyone would have been starving, and I would have had, you know, half a pound of bread, and you would have asked for half of it, I would have probably thought very much about giving it to you or not.
[27:46.460 --> 27:52.440]  Let me be clear though, that the moral justification for intellectual property is not rivalrousness.
[27:52.440 --> 27:56.140]  Even though our opposition uses that as a propaganda bit, it's false.
[27:56.380 --> 28:02.780]  That the real moral justification for it is that, on net, intellectual property is good for society.
[28:03.120 --> 28:06.460]  Well, I'm not actually using the moral... I don't agree with that, but that's the case, I think.
[28:06.620 --> 28:08.560]  I'm not actually using a moral justification.
[28:08.560 --> 28:10.580]  I'm just saying that...
[28:10.580 --> 28:11.220]  Oh yeah, absolutely.
[28:11.220 --> 28:17.700]  If it doesn't cost you anything to share most people by their nature, would...
[28:17.700 --> 28:27.360]  And that's why you would not find anybody saying that file sharing is bad, unless they're actually paid by somebody, or they have a vested interest.
[28:27.380 --> 28:27.700]  Right, absolutely right.
[28:27.860 --> 28:29.000]  File sharing is a virtue.
[28:29.360 --> 28:33.160]  Your point is that it is virtuous to share with your friends what it doesn't hurt you to share.
[28:33.320 --> 28:34.320]  And we all agree with that.
[28:35.920 --> 28:36.420]  All right.
[28:37.040 --> 28:38.700]  So here comes the barn burning conclusion.
[28:39.640 --> 28:42.460]  We all agree that file sharing is a virtue, pretty much.
[28:42.640 --> 28:45.440]  If you have something extra you can give to your friends, you should do it.
[28:45.440 --> 28:47.960]  I don't think anybody thinks twice about that.
[28:51.030 --> 28:55.770]  So it's pretty clear that intellectual property is evil.
[28:57.570 --> 28:58.370]  Evil.
[29:00.050 --> 29:02.490]  So quit fucking apologizing for this thing.
[29:03.450 --> 29:07.090]  File sharing is not stealing, it's freedom fighting.
[29:08.130 --> 29:12.730]  It is the side of good nobility and the Knights of the Round Table.
[29:14.150 --> 29:16.530]  We are real, actual people.
[29:17.410 --> 29:19.270]  Our opposition are not people.
[29:19.630 --> 29:20.920]  I don't mean to say they're jerks.
[29:21.670 --> 29:25.230]  I mean to say that our opposition is not the employees of the IP industry.
[29:25.810 --> 29:28.470]  It is the industry itself.
[29:28.690 --> 29:30.270]  The employees can go find new jobs.
[29:30.390 --> 29:33.050]  And they can be babysitters, they can learn how to write Pearl, whatever.
[29:34.810 --> 29:35.290]  Right?
[29:35.590 --> 29:36.990]  The industry...
[29:36.990 --> 29:37.410]  What are you doing for a living?
[29:38.590 --> 29:39.770]  I write C code.
[29:40.250 --> 29:41.550]  You write C code.
[29:41.610 --> 29:41.830]  You write C code.
[29:41.830 --> 29:46.970]  You mean you write proprietary C code, then it's copyrighted, then you get...
[29:48.150 --> 29:49.110]  I'm sorry.
[29:49.190 --> 29:51.170]  I love having shills.
[29:51.410 --> 29:54.170]  I love having shills in place to have this conversation with.
[29:54.430 --> 29:55.830]  I'm absolutely for it.
[29:55.930 --> 29:57.210]  But let me get to the end and then we'll do it.
[29:57.290 --> 29:57.450]  Okay?
[29:57.790 --> 29:58.130]  Thanks.
[30:01.030 --> 30:02.730]  We are real, actual people.
[30:02.990 --> 30:05.250]  Our opposition is not people.
[30:05.370 --> 30:06.150]  It is an industry.
[30:06.510 --> 30:08.590]  The employees of that industry can go elsewhere.
[30:08.590 --> 30:12.830]  But the industry goes on and on and on, year after year, and century after century.
[30:14.210 --> 30:18.290]  This is an opposition between us, humans, and the natural environment.
[30:18.290 --> 30:19.690]  We have moral rights.
[30:19.930 --> 30:21.450]  Our opposition doesn't.
[30:21.670 --> 30:23.310]  That's why we are freedom fighters.
[30:24.470 --> 30:27.430]  Our interests are in the freedom to hustle for ourselves.
[30:28.030 --> 30:29.370]  That's a basic right.
[30:30.410 --> 30:33.730]  Self-preservation is a basic right.
[30:33.950 --> 30:35.130]  It doesn't have to be written anywhere.
[30:35.290 --> 30:37.010]  It happens to be written all over the place.
[30:37.210 --> 30:39.590]  But we don't need anybody to offer it to us.
[30:39.750 --> 30:41.210]  And nobody can take it away from us.
[30:41.470 --> 30:46.250]  And intellectual property demands that we not mind our own self-preservation.
[30:46.890 --> 30:49.770]  That's why we are freedom fighters.
[30:50.230 --> 30:54.610]  Because the right to self-preservation is not optional.
[30:57.430 --> 30:58.010]  Excuse me.
[30:58.110 --> 31:01.050]  I missed the point on how you have your observers .
[31:04.910 --> 31:08.970]  I missed the point on how it is that you write seafood for a living.
[31:09.410 --> 31:12.010]  But somehow that is an intellectual property.
[31:12.230 --> 31:14.470]  It may not be being sold with seafood.
[31:17.370 --> 31:18.630]  It's not an intellectual property.
[31:19.530 --> 31:20.570]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[31:20.730 --> 31:21.130]  That's right.
[31:21.290 --> 31:22.690]  They're seeing a venture capital.
[31:23.030 --> 31:23.950]  It's just like in .
[31:25.090 --> 31:26.130]  I get .
[31:29.050 --> 31:30.370]  Let me get out to the end.
[31:30.450 --> 31:33.830]  This is such an amazingly hot topic.
[31:33.850 --> 31:35.770]  It's really hard to have these conversations.
[31:36.270 --> 31:37.470]  I can appreciate your point.
[31:37.570 --> 31:41.190]  I'm pretty sure that we'd end up violently agreeing, you know, or not at the end.
[31:41.190 --> 31:43.130]  But let me just get out to the end because I'm really close.
[31:44.550 --> 31:45.130]  All right.
[31:45.330 --> 31:47.750]  So, it is noble to do what we are doing.
[31:49.030 --> 31:56.830]  If we win, the result is democracy, free speech, more arts, apple pie, love, back rubs.
[31:56.830 --> 32:03.270]  If our opposition wins, it's about nepotism, protectionism, and an oligarchy.
[32:03.530 --> 32:12.450]  It's about a cartel that has a permanent, enshrined, and constitutional law privilege with the government.
[32:13.590 --> 32:16.730]  It's not that we're not so bad, really.
[32:16.970 --> 32:18.050]  It's that we're good.
[32:18.250 --> 32:19.210]  We are outright good.
[32:19.370 --> 32:21.870]  So, quit fucking apologizing for doing good.
[32:22.370 --> 32:26.010]  We are not on a mission to not hurt the artists.
[32:26.010 --> 32:29.790]  We are on a mission to crush the recording industry.
[32:30.390 --> 32:32.130]  Crush, crush, crush.
[32:35.250 --> 32:39.430]  You don't have to say you're sorry about screwing Britney because she can really take care of herself.
[32:39.870 --> 32:44.830]  The Backstreet Boys are doing fine, and all the other artists are hosed.
[32:48.490 --> 32:52.010]  Moreover, the point can't be how to protect the artists.
[32:52.330 --> 32:55.610]  We can't be threatening the artists because we are the artists.
[32:57.450 --> 33:04.110]  When the founders were talking about the arts, they were thinking of the hurdy-gurdy, you know, the harpsichord.
[33:04.310 --> 33:05.630]  Well, that stuff isn't there anymore.
[33:05.930 --> 33:09.810]  We are the people who own the creative public domain.
[33:10.230 --> 33:20.590]  We do this stuff in personal time, nights and weekends, applying talent, not getting a lot back except for maybe some glory, personal satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction.
[33:20.590 --> 33:24.030]  We are, as far as the Constitution is concerned, artists.
[33:24.610 --> 33:30.410]  So when people say that what we are doing is threatening artists, that can't be right.
[33:30.570 --> 33:31.530]  We are the artists.
[33:36.450 --> 33:42.690]  The point is not how to protect the artists, it's how to protect ourselves from the IP industry.
[33:43.490 --> 33:47.070]  Our historic parasite.
[33:48.350 --> 33:50.610]  So quit fucking apologizing for this thing.
[33:50.750 --> 33:51.590]  It's a real struggle.
[33:51.850 --> 33:53.210]  Politics is a true fight.
[33:53.450 --> 33:54.890]  It is not for play.
[33:54.890 --> 33:56.190]  There's a lot of rats.
[33:56.410 --> 33:57.590]  There's not that much cheese.
[33:57.930 --> 34:01.950]  The cheese is money and stuff that matters, that people really care about.
[34:02.190 --> 34:07.930]  And if we want some of the cheese, we have to recognize that it's serious business.
[34:09.950 --> 34:12.590]  Force is the way things get done at that level.
[34:12.830 --> 34:14.910]  Our opponents are not afraid of using force.
[34:14.910 --> 34:16.670]  And they use it every day.
[34:17.050 --> 34:19.790]  We are in a power struggle to preserve democratic government.
[34:20.150 --> 34:31.690]  And the reason this is a power struggle to preserve democratic government is that the idea of intellectual property has created forces which are powerful enough to threaten democratic processes.
[34:32.190 --> 34:38.330]  And if the courts seem like they're doing arbitrary and bizarre things, that's wrong.
[34:40.470 --> 34:46.490]  Because the courts are doing exactly what they're expected to do, given that intellectual property must exist.
[34:46.790 --> 35:00.410]  If intellectual property is a valid concept, then what the courts have done, and what the CBD TPA is, and what all of our enemies want to do to us, what palladium is, is okay.
[35:00.790 --> 35:02.770]  It is constitutionally enshrined.
[35:03.690 --> 35:12.310]  You can be one or the other, but if you accept IP, then you accept a permanent industry propped up until the end of the constitution.
[35:12.870 --> 35:18.570]  And to prop it up, you have to give up your right to invent in favor of a right to have an intellectual property industry.
[35:20.450 --> 35:27.990]  Intellectual property is not now, and it never has been, a balance between private property and a public commons.
[35:29.050 --> 35:30.630]  It is a hole in democracy.
[35:30.630 --> 35:32.050]  It's not okay sometimes.
[35:33.070 --> 35:37.430]  It's not okay for big kids to beat you up when they don't actually break anything.
[35:37.730 --> 35:40.730]  It's wrong all the time, and in every way.
[35:42.790 --> 35:52.630]  So just quit fucking apologizing, and when it comes down to finding a meme, somebody asks you the three words or four words to describe what the point is, you just say, I don't believe in intellectual property.
[35:52.630 --> 35:53.410]  It's wrong.
[35:53.410 --> 35:53.490]  It's wrong.
[35:54.910 --> 35:55.510]  Thanks.
[35:55.750 --> 35:56.130]  Comments?
[36:03.370 --> 36:13.870]  Going back to economics, people are motivated by self-interest, and I see both sides of the debate, and both sides have merit.
[36:14.570 --> 36:36.590]  But I think if we can work on a way of sort of arguing IP rights, no IP rights, and starting to get to the bottom of how we can compensate these artists for their time and satisfy that self-interest, I think we'll find a way to mutually work and let this prevail for the people as well as the artists.
[36:37.170 --> 36:45.810]  I think that's a point that everybody agrees with, that we really want artists to get paid.
[36:45.810 --> 36:46.730]  It's really important.
[36:47.190 --> 37:04.370]  But getting artists paid, my point here, is that getting artists paid is not the point of the current system, and that anything we have been doing and that we could arrange to do to get the artists paid, we will be prevented from doing, unless the major net effect is to enshrine the IP industry.
[37:04.550 --> 37:15.810]  That is to say, if we exist, if the IP industry has to destroy us, has to destroy the artists to destroy us, it will, and that's what it's doing.
[37:16.170 --> 37:18.990]  So we can't have compromise, because they won't accept it.
[37:19.510 --> 37:20.130]  Go ahead.
[37:22.410 --> 37:23.450]  That's a great thing we do.
[37:23.510 --> 37:29.470]  Yes, actually, I sent Lucasfilm a check for $4, because I downloaded Star Wars $4, because we have to pay off to make cash.
[37:36.840 --> 37:38.300]  You mentioned that the...
[37:39.180 --> 37:39.980]  How are we at time?
[37:40.140 --> 37:40.740]  We got a couple of minutes?
[37:41.180 --> 37:42.460]  About 10 minutes more.
[37:42.660 --> 37:43.360]  10 minutes more, then.
[37:43.520 --> 37:45.040]  Just a clarification, I would like.
[37:45.620 --> 37:50.840]  You said that the Constitution enshrines the industry of IP.
[37:51.140 --> 38:00.960]  It wasn't, from my understanding, until at least 100 years after the Constitution, that corporations actually acquired the rights of people.
[38:01.960 --> 38:11.580]  In the late 19th century, the corporations actually were able to start holding copyrights, because they were considered equivalent to people in a very badly judged decision by the Supreme Court.
[38:11.760 --> 38:20.800]  But until that time, the Founding Fathers had intended this very much for individuals to be the artists, the creators, and therefore the holders of copyrights, and the beneficiaries of this.
[38:21.060 --> 38:22.100]  How do you explain that?
[38:22.180 --> 38:23.580]  Because that's where I didn't get...
[38:23.580 --> 38:28.280]  I mean, there are parts of that that I agree with, parts that I don't.
[38:29.480 --> 38:40.140]  Historically, the history of intellectual property has always been bound up with censorship, government censorship, and its historical roots are in censorship by the Crown in England.
[38:43.340 --> 38:49.860]  As far as the fact that corporations didn't have the right to hold property until later on, it's the same thing.
[38:49.860 --> 38:52.600]  I mean, there were still industries, there were still cartels, there were still businesses.
[38:53.460 --> 39:07.780]  So, and in any event, intellectual property, if it passes from hand to hand, and if it leads to a creation of a permanent IP industry that can't be threatened by any legal means, then the net result is the same.
[39:08.820 --> 39:12.560]  So it just looked worse by becoming corporations?
[39:13.040 --> 39:13.580]  Yeah, yeah.
[39:13.580 --> 39:14.600]  It was already...
[39:15.480 --> 39:16.660]  I mean, the seeds were there.
[39:16.820 --> 39:17.480]  You know, they were too small.
[39:17.580 --> 39:18.240]  It didn't really matter.
[39:18.360 --> 39:19.240]  It took a long time to happen.
[39:21.240 --> 39:27.220]  I really like the idea of the parties and of, like, friend nets, and I think that makes a great deal of sense.
[39:27.380 --> 39:30.920]  I mean, it's very good to hear people, instead of just speaking out in the ether, coming up with practical solutions.
[39:30.920 --> 39:34.820]  But I think, you know, once again, you've got to sort of think into the ether again.
[39:34.980 --> 39:40.760]  I mean, if we continue with practices like that, does it actually bring the recording industry all the way down?
[39:40.900 --> 39:45.600]  If it doesn't bring the recording industry all the way down, what kind of adaptations is it going to produce within the recording industry?
[39:45.760 --> 39:46.840]  How do we counteract those?
[39:46.840 --> 39:53.000]  And then, I mean, like, even ultimately, if this does work, you know, this is always sort of like the problem with socialism and communism, too.
[39:53.120 --> 40:00.660]  It's like, how do you pay the artists, you know, like, in, you know, the grand ideal of how the system eventually works?
[40:00.900 --> 40:02.600]  You know, so, what now?
[40:02.740 --> 40:03.120]  What next?
[40:03.240 --> 40:05.500]  As well as, you know, the solutions you suggested.
[40:08.080 --> 40:15.000]  Well, your first point about adaptations that happen as a result, I thought about it, and I don't really know what the...
[40:15.580 --> 40:21.840]  I don't know if I were on their side, I don't know what, you know, sort of antiviral mechanisms I try to feel.
[40:21.840 --> 40:23.580]  And I probably would be pretty unhappy.
[40:23.780 --> 40:25.960]  I probably would try to suppress the news.
[40:26.160 --> 40:30.320]  That's what I would do, keep publications reporting on it, because that would, you know, kill a lot of the threat.
[40:30.740 --> 40:37.080]  As far as paying the artists, again, let me say that there are many ways to pay the artists.
[40:37.420 --> 40:38.760]  Many, many ways to pay the artists.
[40:40.420 --> 40:46.860]  And we... there... there's a lot of problems with all of them.
[40:47.080 --> 40:51.540]  One of them is, legitimately, and I don't mean this facetiously or cleverly, I mean to say we are the artists.
[40:52.620 --> 40:52.980]  Right?
[40:53.100 --> 41:01.820]  If we're making a living for ourselves as hackers, I mean, I don't mean as corporate IT guys, then that's the problem of how to pay the artists.
[41:02.080 --> 41:07.440]  There's the issue of paying the artists by government policy, Europe, you know, social democracy...
[41:08.360 --> 41:09.240]  Why am I missing the name?
[41:09.380 --> 41:15.180]  Social democracy, European social democracies, consider it to be government benefit, to some degree.
[41:15.580 --> 41:18.600]  There's, you know, better wages for giving guitar lessons.
[41:18.880 --> 41:19.800]  There's a lot of ways to pay.
[41:19.800 --> 41:24.060]  There is allowing... but most of all, here's the real answer.
[41:24.260 --> 41:24.460]  All right.
[41:24.700 --> 41:26.060]  There's a very simple answer to your question.
[41:26.220 --> 41:27.700]  And to your question about paying the artists.
[41:30.140 --> 41:33.420]  The IP industry doesn't care about the artists.
[41:33.700 --> 41:39.280]  If it has to kill the artists to get to us, then that's what it'll do, and that's what it's doing.
[41:39.760 --> 41:42.520]  So we've tried a lot of ways to get these people paid, right?
[41:42.680 --> 41:47.060]  Net radio, these little net radio stations, they really could have been profitable.
[41:47.060 --> 41:50.080]  It doesn't take a lot to make a company like Slashdot profitable, for example.
[41:50.660 --> 41:52.680]  There's ways that money flows through the system.
[41:52.840 --> 41:56.060]  There's little file sharing companies, you know, LimeWire, Morpheus, etc.
[41:56.180 --> 41:59.320]  They're tiny little companies, and they do staggering volume.
[41:59.620 --> 42:05.160]  So they don't really... they really don't have to do so much advertising or many, you know, chunks of spyware to make a profit.
[42:06.000 --> 42:11.740]  And there is money available that can come back to the artists as long as our industry is allowed to continue existing.
[42:13.040 --> 42:18.600]  So you're about to make a comment that... I'm happy to... I'm happy to do this.
[42:18.920 --> 42:26.580]  But I gotta tell you that... I hope you'll understand if it feels to me like it's going off the rails.
[42:28.600 --> 42:29.360]  Anyway, I'm sorry.
[42:29.460 --> 42:30.120]  Go ahead and make a comment.
[42:30.240 --> 42:30.560]  I apologize.
[42:32.280 --> 42:48.120]  So I'm somewhat in the unusual position of agreeing with you that the RIAA and the MPAA are overly aggressive to a ridiculous point with the bastardization of U.S.
[42:48.280 --> 42:57.660]  copyright law, and especially things like the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act for Disney, which is one of the most ridiculous things that I've ever seen.
[42:57.660 --> 43:03.340]  That said, you're attacking the whole idea of intellectual property.
[43:03.500 --> 43:04.620]  And I write for a living.
[43:04.820 --> 43:05.560]  I write books.
[43:06.180 --> 43:09.680]  I've got some of those that are actually still being published.
[43:09.960 --> 43:13.380]  I write technical documentation for software.
[43:13.620 --> 43:16.300]  And I also happen to be a 2600 author.
[43:16.300 --> 43:30.500]  So let me give you an example of the tip jar thing that you're talking about versus an intellectual property system that you've got set up and what that means to an artist.
[43:30.780 --> 43:44.100]  As much as you want to talk about taking my stuff or another artist's stuff and coming up with all sorts of interesting ways to share it, which I fully support in terms of fair use, bear in mind.
[43:44.320 --> 43:52.280]  I just don't... if you're going to buy something anyway, I don't think that you have a right to download it from a friend rather than buy a copy from me if it's my copy.
[43:52.280 --> 43:54.820]  I mean, I think that your points are good points.
[43:55.220 --> 43:55.800]  I mean...
[43:56.420 --> 43:57.260]  Let me finish.
[43:58.180 --> 43:59.200]  I'll let you finish.
[44:00.560 --> 44:09.500]  So I make a living not a good one writing stuff that there's a copyright on and that I control intellectual property rights to.
[44:09.500 --> 44:14.880]  But it's at least enough to pay the rent and wife, food, and drive a really cheap car.
[44:16.880 --> 44:26.780]  2600 Magazine gave me four issues of 2600 Magazine and a t-shirt for the articles that I've written for them.
[44:26.800 --> 44:35.200]  Granted, they don't take as long to write as books, but it does require a substantial amount of effort to research a good article for them.
[44:37.260 --> 44:47.600]  So, my guess is that if you go into a world outside of the fairyland of dot coms and open source where idiots will throw around money...
[44:47.600 --> 44:48.360]  Hold on a second here.
[44:48.480 --> 44:49.460]  I want to tell you something.
[44:49.640 --> 44:52.360]  If you think you're going to write for a living, you're living in a fairyland.
[44:53.400 --> 44:54.620]  That is not a living.
[44:54.800 --> 44:55.780]  And I can tell you because I've tried.
[44:55.960 --> 44:57.080]  It is brutally hard.
[44:57.560 --> 45:00.120]  Who here is a writer that isn't totally miserable?
[45:00.120 --> 45:01.620]  Come on.
[45:02.080 --> 45:02.700]  Come on.
[45:03.920 --> 45:05.420]  It is the worst possible...
[45:05.420 --> 45:16.340]  So, you're telling me I should take up babysitting and keep writing, too, and going through all of the misery of writing and just give that to society and babysit, too?
[45:16.340 --> 45:18.700]  I mean, let me say... I just get it.
[45:19.080 --> 45:25.040]  There's a really good, long conversation to have about that specific point, but that's not my point right now.
[45:25.180 --> 45:33.360]  My point is that the stuff in the Constitution is not about the arts or paying the artists.
[45:33.740 --> 45:43.840]  It's about guaranteeing the existence of a specific industry for all time that happens to also act as a proxy body for the government to administer arts policy.
[45:44.860 --> 45:45.340]  Right?
[45:45.760 --> 45:46.980]  So that's a problem.
[45:47.280 --> 45:54.140]  Because if you do one thing to accomplish another thing and it doesn't work, you don't get to claim that you accomplished the thing.
[45:54.580 --> 45:55.060]  Right?
[45:55.240 --> 45:57.060]  This stuff is backfiring and it doesn't work.
[45:57.540 --> 45:58.740]  We have less intellectual property.
[45:58.920 --> 45:59.680]  We have less good stuff.
[46:00.000 --> 46:00.940]  So that's my point.
[46:01.240 --> 46:08.400]  Is it bad to get rid of intellectual property and let the writers who are making nothing earn even less?
[46:08.400 --> 46:09.380]  No, that's terrible.
[46:09.640 --> 46:10.120]  Absolutely.
[46:11.340 --> 46:14.780]  But, you know, it's a realistic complaint.
[46:15.560 --> 46:22.740]  Well, obviously, your audience wouldn't be here if they didn't think that these issues were important either because they're for or against it.
[46:24.020 --> 46:36.460]  But when you bring in the DMCA, and you mentioned Palladium, and you get into issues that aren't just about the people who can afford to have computers and big bandwidth pirating people's music.
[46:36.460 --> 46:52.000]  You get into what I think... I doubt anybody in this room would say that the really insidious part of the DMCA is preventing researchers from, you know, testing encryption schemes that have been, you know, endorsed by media companies.
[46:52.000 --> 47:01.140]  When you're preventing scientific development through these laws, that's a little bit more important than rich kids getting their free music.
[47:01.560 --> 47:20.880]  So as somebody who is out there trying to combat what I would say, what I think a lot of people would say are the more important parts of these bad laws, it really hurts us to have the people saying, we want our free new DJ Shadow record.
[47:20.880 --> 47:22.860]  Well, I mean, I hear you.
[47:23.320 --> 47:26.880]  Here's my... I have nothing but respect for people who are doing political work.
[47:27.160 --> 47:30.960]  You know, I'm not doing it, and I'm reaping any benefits that are being reaped.
[47:31.080 --> 47:32.040]  That's a great thing.
[47:32.140 --> 47:36.720]  But I don't... I think that the people who are doing the political work are going to keep, you know, going nowhere.
[47:37.220 --> 47:38.700]  Because nobody respects us.
[47:39.100 --> 47:40.040]  Really, they don't.
[47:40.300 --> 47:41.860]  You know, they're not scared.
[47:41.920 --> 47:44.600]  Or if they are scared, then that's all we have going for us.
[47:44.860 --> 47:50.560]  I mean, you know, in Congress, do they care that Cory Doctorow is a really cool guy?
[47:50.560 --> 47:51.900]  I don't think so.
[47:52.040 --> 47:55.020]  They care that there's a lot of people sharing stuff, and it scares them.
[47:55.160 --> 48:04.400]  They would probably care when, a few years down the road, a number of U.S. academics, researchers, and businesses have to go abroad because they can't do their research here.
[48:04.540 --> 48:07.220]  And then the government can't tax them and make money on it.
[48:07.460 --> 48:10.160]  You mean this business would flee because of intellectual property?
[48:10.160 --> 48:15.080]  Because of, you know, various statutes in the DMCA for any types of research.
[48:15.860 --> 48:17.580]  I mean, that costs the government money.
[48:17.720 --> 48:18.780]  That's what they get worried about.
[48:19.100 --> 48:21.220]  Yeah, no, I'm totally for that kind of thinking.
[48:21.400 --> 48:22.300]  I think it's very sensible.
[48:22.680 --> 48:25.140]  But, I mean, I want to say, this is real-world stuff.
[48:25.300 --> 48:34.640]  And the government will give our lobbyists and our journalists nice little treats if we, you know, make them do it.
[48:37.460 --> 48:39.080]  I'd just like to address a couple points.
[48:40.160 --> 48:41.480]  First is the paying of the artists.
[48:42.440 --> 48:46.040]  It's often a big concern, you know, how are the artists going to get paid if we trade their music for free?
[48:47.280 --> 48:49.060]  Well, a lot of the systems are already in place.
[48:49.140 --> 48:52.560]  Say, a lot of people use PayPal for selling their music, or they sell by mail order.
[48:53.000 --> 48:55.740]  The whole idea of a music and record industry is obsolete.
[48:56.180 --> 48:57.120]  You don't need it.
[48:57.780 --> 49:01.280]  It gets between the consumer and the musician, and it doesn't serve any other purpose.
[49:02.120 --> 49:08.380]  The musician now in the area of home recording can record an album for a grand with equipment that's easily available.
[49:08.860 --> 49:13.740]  And then he can sell it straight to the consumer without the guy in the middle taking 90% of the money.
[49:14.740 --> 49:15.640]  You don't need it.
[49:15.880 --> 49:16.660]  It's that simple.
[49:17.580 --> 49:24.680]  And as far as the TCPA Palladium stuff, people in this room are, like you said, built things.
[49:24.680 --> 49:31.120]  But if you can use your talents to defeat those mechanisms, that's a noble thing to do.
[49:32.360 --> 49:40.760]  Because, unfortunately, what they're doing is they're sacrificing functionality at the expense of trying to protect somebody's profits, which is absolutely wrong.
[49:41.960 --> 49:42.620]  Thank you.
[49:43.440 --> 49:43.780]  Thank you.
[49:44.520 --> 49:45.100]  Thank you.
[49:45.100 --> 49:45.380]  Thank you.
[49:46.720 --> 49:47.300]  All right.
[49:47.520 --> 49:50.660]  So, before we go, I absolutely did get to you.
[49:52.920 --> 50:02.000]  My, even though I, my good friend Clark Kent, I'm sorry, I should have said, Nelson De Noon is a really dumb pseudonym.
[50:03.120 --> 50:06.380]  It's just like a bad band name, so I was going to change it to something else.
[50:06.380 --> 50:08.540]  But, I would like to be able to get e-mail.
[50:08.880 --> 50:14.600]  So, if you want to send e-mail to me, you can send it to anybody who wants to write it down.
[50:14.660 --> 50:16.740]  My last name is Gonce, G-O-N-C-E.
[50:16.980 --> 50:18.840]  You can Google me, I'll be the first result.
[50:19.020 --> 50:19.460]  So, go ahead.
[50:19.660 --> 50:20.760]  And please do send an e-mail.
[50:20.900 --> 50:21.720]  I want to hear what people have to say.
[50:22.180 --> 50:22.640]  John, go ahead.
[50:24.900 --> 50:35.700]  I guess, I guess, I guess what I just wanted to say is, there are a lot of artists out there that are very, very frustrated.
[50:35.700 --> 50:38.220]  by the IP industry.
[50:38.580 --> 50:45.900]  And they feel that it's part of what's keeping them from having the freedom that they want.
[50:46.200 --> 50:58.840]  But, a lot of artists that I've spoken to, that I've worked with directly, are really afraid of the concept of losing the concept of IP.
[50:58.840 --> 51:03.800]  because they feel that, that is their value.
[51:04.400 --> 51:09.220]  And, without IP, they feel that they would starve.
[51:09.760 --> 51:22.940]  And, what you just, the world that you're describing, without intellectual property, that artists are somehow, are somehow able to feed themselves.
[51:22.940 --> 51:25.820]  Which is the basic, basic issue.
[51:26.900 --> 51:29.860]  Is something that very few artists...
[51:29.860 --> 51:30.540]  I have to cut you off.
[51:31.340 --> 51:31.700]  Yeah.
[51:31.880 --> 51:33.780]  Very few, are you able to see that?
[51:36.080 --> 51:37.640]  I have lots to say about that.
[51:38.420 --> 51:38.780]  Alright.
[51:39.080 --> 51:40.100]  Thanks a lot for coming.
[51:40.480 --> 51:43.460]  And I hope anybody who's just here for that, remember, the one catch phrase.
[51:43.600 --> 51:47.740]  If somebody wants to ask you, while you're doing some kind of political thing, what your point is, don't hem and haw.
[51:47.740 --> 51:49.800]  I just said, intellectual property is wrong.
[51:50.020 --> 51:51.720]  It's quick, it's clean, it's simple, and it's fucking right.
[51:51.980 --> 51:52.300]  Alright.
[51:52.460 --> 51:52.780]  Thanks a lot.